


someone new

by inkquell



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, First Meetings, M/M, People Watching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8685322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkquell/pseuds/inkquell
Summary: Minhyuk has a habit of falling in love with strangers.





	

Minhyuk likes the city.

He likes the comfort that comes from crowded streets and different faces. The city breathes, and the people are its lungs, laughing and shouting and sighing. Cars wind down the streets like blood through a heart. Cracks in the pavement are veins. High-rises and skyscrapers stretch like metal fingers. Minhyuk remembers days spent between subway stops and sidewalks, his mother’s hold tight around his hand so he wouldn’t run off. Alone in another city, between different subway stations and streets, Minhyuk learns to get lost.

Minhyuk likes to people watch.

On the bus or the train, from wooden park benches and frosted café windows. The indistinct chatter of strangers is music. Narratives appear from the clothes on their backs and the bags at their feet. The way they smile, the way they laugh, whether they’re window gazers or subway sleepers.

Minhyuk imagines where they might be going.

Every Tuesday, an old woman gets off at Minhyuk's bus stop with a bouquet of flowers in her wrinkled fist. He imagines she owns a flower shop. It sits on the corner, nestled between a bookshop and a bakery, the smell of tulips and freshly baked bread. It has boxes of pink roses in its windows, and a handprinted sign over the door. Each morning, the old woman waters her flowers with a yellow watering can, then sweeps leaves off the sidewalk in front of her shop. She gathers the brightest flowers at the end of the day into a vase and visits her granddaughter.

Minhyuk imagines who they might be.

The boy sitting at the back of the bus is running away from home. He keeps his head down, hair bleached and hanging into his eyes. Even though the weather grows colder, he’s dressed only in jeans and a well-worn hoodie. The hood is pulled up around his face to hide acne dotted cheeks. A military grade backpack lies at his feet, packed full. He watches pavement pass outside the window. His eyes are downcast, his face reflected in the glass. He’s far from home, but he’ll find something better here, just like Minhyuk has.

The bus slows, breaks whining and hissing as they halt in front of the next stop. The boy rises from his seat. He makes his way down the middle isle past Minhyuk. He catches his eyes—kind eyes, yesterday’s eyeliner smudged along his lashes. Minhyuk’s mouth instinctively tugs into a smile. The boy smiles back, small, hesitant, and hauls the strap of his backpack higher on his shoulder. In that moment they have a shared existence, if nothing else.

Minhyuk watches as he disappears down the steps and onto the sidewalk. When the bus starts down the street again, Minhyuk wishes he’d said hello. He should have asked his name and proved his narrative wrong. But most strangers remain strangers. There are over seven billion of us, and in his lifetime Minhyuk will see millions of faces, too many to count. He can’t remember them all, but in the distance between bus stops, he tries.

Minhyuk gets off at the next stop. He tightens his scarf around his neck, and lets the city swallow him again.

(His name was Changkyun.)

Minhyuk has a habit of falling in love with strangers.

The café is cozy, its lighting warm and soft like a crackling fire. There are rows of well-used tables, the tops scratched by the pencils and pens of writers, and stained by spilled coffee. Minhyuk sits in his usual seat near the window. Heat trickles through the radiator underneath and fogs up the glass. The coffee cup is hot against Minhyuk’s open palm. He takes a sip and it warms his insides, sugary sweet on his tongue.

Most tables are vacant or occupied by university students and bookworms, content with their lattes and free Wi-Fi. Others stare into their coffee mugs, alone on 30 minute lunch breaks. Minhyuk doesn’t like being alone either, but he’s learning how.

A bell tinkles over the front door as someone shuffles into the coffee shop. The collar of his coat is creased from the wind, prominent ears red and bitten by the cold. He shakes snow from his hair and wipes off the bottom of his boots on the welcome mat by the door. He orders two coffees, then sits down at a table tucked into the corner of the café. He’s waiting for someone.

Minhyuk turns back to the company of his latte, but the buzzing of a phone against a tabletop draws his attention. It belongs to the man sitting two tables away. He answers it, leaning back in his chair, effortlessly suave. Minhyuk wonders who he’s talking to, maybe his mother, or a good friend, or someone special. The stranger’s nose crinkles when he smiles, his eyes soft. He holds his phone closer to his ear and laughs. His laughter is a staccato, bright sounding, shameless, and beautiful.

It only takes three more gulps to finish his coffee. Minhyuk leaves the café, his chest feeling tight and hollow. He pauses on the other side of the door to look through the frosty window. The table in the corner is empty. Before Minhyuk can frown, the bell tinkles and the café door opens. Someone brushes past Minhyuk on the way out. Their shoulders bump.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you.”

Minhyuk looks up to see the same soft eyes and the same two cups of coffee in hand.

“Don’t worry about it,” Minhyuk assures.

The stranger replies with a gentle smile.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t spill my coffee on you,” he says, and lets out a laugh.

It’s a cliché, almost too genuine. But he’s endearing and charming like the male lead in a romantic comedy. Minhyuk can only nod. The stranger smiles again, then continues on his way, down the street until he’s just another dot amongst the grey.

A collective existence, even only for a second.

(His name was Hoseok.)

Loneliness is different at night. Something about it feels shared.

Minhyuk drums his fingers against his glass. The bar is atmospheric and dim, tucked away in its own ungentrified corner of the city. Outside the window Minhyuk sees squiggles of light from variety store signs and streetlights. Bright and blurry like a long exposure photograph.

Only one of the tables is full. Minhyuk glances over his shoulder at the group. They cheer and clap, clinking their drinks together. The background music isn’t the moody rock song playing over the speakers, but their laughter instead. As far as they’re concerned, the world belongs to them.

One of them is nodding and playing along, but Minhyuk knows an empty smile when he sees one. The stranger purses his lips around his beer and looks up just in time to meet Minhyuk’s eyes from across the room.

There’s a subtle ferocity about him, cloaked behind something gentle and boyish. He’s not afraid to hold Minhyuk’s gaze. He ignores his friends for a moment to look back into the eyes of a stranger, possibly curious, confused, or maybe annoyed. His friends clink their bottles of soju together, the alcohol dizzying their heads and heating their stomachs. Minhyuk half-smiles at him and the stranger’s expression softens into something else.

He looks at Minhyuk like he’d rather be in his place.

“Hey, hyung!” someone says and the his eyes drop down to his bottle.

Minhyuk turns away.

It’s better to feel alone in a room full of strangers than it is to feel alone in a room full of friends.

(His name was Kihyun.)

People exist even when he’s not looking at them. Sometimes Minhyuk forgets.

The subway roars like a metal beast. The platform is lit by florescent lights, shining in the reflection of the dirty tiles below. There’s a map of the subway routes on the nearest wall, colourful lines tangled together like a plate of spaghetti. Signs hanging from the green beams of the station list the names of different city districts. Hongdae, Songpa, Seocho, Gangnam, Gwangjin. Minhyuk has explored them all.

There’s someone sleeping on the subway car when Minhyuk gets on. He sits in the seat in from of him. The sleeper leans against the arm rest, thick rimmed glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose and lips pursed. A book is opened in his lap, the spine and cover creased from use. Maybe it’s poetry, maybe it’s literature, it’s probably something Minhyuk has never read. He could be a writer, or a poet, or maybe an English major.

The stranger sighs in his sleep, and shifts in his seat. Minhyuk thinks he might wake up, but he doesn’t. The subway barrels down the tracks. The cars creak, echoing against the walls of the tunnels, and he stays asleep.

Minhyuk imagines him sleeping and never waking up, until the subway is no longer running and slows to a halt on the tracks. As if his existence the way Minhyuk sees it can never end.

But when the subway slows at the next stop, he lifts his head from the railing. He tucks his book away in the bag at his feet and stands up, his long coat billowing around his legs. He pays Minhyuk no mind as he passes him to reach the doors. Minhyuk watches as the stranger steps out onto the subway platform. The doors close behind him like another chance come and gone.

(His name was Hyungwon.)

Sometimes strangers feel familiar to Minhyuk. He’s heard about past lives and reincarnation from clickbait articles on the internet and phoney interviews on the news. Psychics and televangelists say your soulmate in one life may be a stranger to you in the next.

Minhyuk follows the cracks in the sidewalk. The airy pleasantness of a spring ballad plays in his ears, but the trees are still bare and frost dusts the grass. He passes by shops and pockets of people, school kids, moms and dads pushing toddlers down the street in strollers.

There’s a record store on the corner. Dusty vinyls peak out from cardboard boxes behind the shop window. Someone sits on the front steps of the store, his messy black hair tucked underneath a backwards snapback. A pair of earbuds dangle from around his neck.

A little girl stops in the middle of the sidewalk to look up at him. He smiles at her before she tugs on her mother's hand and runs off again. Something about his smile is familiar to Minhyuk, born from stolen memories and moments of kindness, childhood photo albums and a grandmother’s knitting needles. The stranger’s eyes fold into quarter moons and it’s like looking at an old friend.

Minhyuk falls in love again.

Behind the shop door, the open sign turns over to read closed. An employee steps outside and locks the front door behind him. He sits on the step above the stranger, then wraps his arms around his middle in a way that’s more than friendly. The stranger looks over his shoulder at him and grins wide. He laughs and leans against his boyfriend’s chest.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you more.”

Minhyuk walks away, and somehow it hurts less this time.

They would have burned too bright.

(His name was Jooheon.)

It’s almost spring.

The snow is beginning to melt, green buds blossoming from the ends of tree branches and flowers poking out from under the dirt. People say spring is for new beginnings and second chances. But Minhyuk is used to the old only thawing again, and everything will be as it was the spring before.

Minhyuk sits on the bench at the bus stop and feels the barely there sun against his cheeks. He looks for the old woman with her flowers, the runaway with bleached hair and acne scars, the stranger holding his two cups of coffee. The sleeping poet, the lonely man at the bar, the boy with a familiar smile.

Instead, someone new sits down beside him.

He’s tall, with wide shoulders and a black gym bag slung over one arm. His black hair is cropped short against his forehead. His skin is warm and tan even at the end of winter. The faintest shadow of stubble grows along his jawline, peeking out from the scarf wrapped around his neck.

The stranger sits patiently beside Minhyuk for the next bus, eyes trained on the ice melting down the pavement. Minhyuk watches him hesitantly from underneath the soft brim of his winter hat. From the soles of the stranger’s sneakers, the way he leans forward in thought, to the impassive look on his face, Minhyuk surprisingly sees no narrative. Maybe he’s run out of stories, or maybe he just doesn’t care to make them anymore.

Snow crunches under Minhyuk’s boots as he shifts over on the bench. The stranger glances over at him, however briefly, but Minhyuk notices the way their eyes catch before he looks away again.

Another moment of shared existence. Another chance. For some strange reason, this time Minhyuk has enough courage to say something, even when he couldn’t so many times before.

“Are you waiting for the bus?” It’s an obvious thing to ask, but Minhyuk finds comfort in the obvious.

The stranger seems surprised to be spoken to by someone. Uneasiness settles in Minhyuk’s stomach until an acknowledging smile parts the stranger’s lips. He looks over at Minhyuk shyly. “Bus number 307. Are you waiting too?”

Minhyuk nods, sniffling a little from the cold. “I am. There’s a café I always go to about 10 minutes away,” he says. “I haven’t seen you at this bus stop before.”

“I just moved to the city a few weeks ago,” the stranger says, laughing a little. There’s a gap between his front teeth. It’s oddly charming. “I haven’t figured out my way around yet.”

“Oh, you’ll find your way,” Minhyuk says. He rubs his mittened hands together for warmth, his fingers managing to freeze inside the layer of wool. “I only moved here from Gwangju three or four months ago. I don’t really know anyone, but I know the city at least.” He laughs.

“What’s your name?” the stranger asks.

“Minhyuk. What’s yours?”

“Hyunwoo,” he says. He looks shy again, eyes travelling back to the pavement.

“Hyunwoo.” Minhyuk repeats it back to himself. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.”

Minhyuk sniffles again. Before he realizes, Hyunwoo is moving over on the bench. Closer. He unwraps the scarf from around his neck and holds it out in front of Minhyuk, offering it to him. It rustles in the wind, a soft and grey knit.

“You look cold,” Hyunwoo says, pink rising up in his cheeks. Maybe from the weather, but maybe from something else too.

Minhyuk looks down at the scarf in Hyunwoo’s hand, then takes it from him. He smiles at Hyunwoo and Hyunwoo smiles back.

Sometimes strangers don’t stay strangers for long.

(His name is Hyunwoo.)

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of experimental. I thought I'd try writing something different. 
> 
> Titled after and sort of inspired by [Someone New](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPJSsAr2iu0) by Hozier. More inspired by [How to Be Alone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs), a poem by Tanya Davis.


End file.
